The Electoral College map, which has long fueled bipartisan anxiety on U.S. election night, is drawing more laughs than groans by November.
throughout Democratic National Convention This week, fake versions of the map flooded social media feeds on X, becoming another popular political meme.
The trend involves taking a blank map of the country, painting it mostly blue or red, and then writing a joke to show how Democrats or Republicans can win the entire Electoral College. The college It consists of 538 electors and a presidential candidate needs 270 votes to win.
Many of the recent memes contain text that begins with “Electoral map, if …”
While meme maps are not a new component of elections—some date back to the infancy of social media— interactive maps and the Electoral College map generators they are more accessible than ever.
Know Your Meme, an online meme database, said the map trended dates goes back to the 2000 election, when former President and then Texas Governor George W. Bush narrowly defeated former Vice President Al Gore.
As it became clear that Bush had won the presidency, some posted “non-motivational posters” (a spoof of “motivational posters”) on defunct Electoral College map sites that listed the country as “the United States of Florida”. A nod to the painstaking recounts in the Sunshine State that ultimately secured the Bush presidency.
In the subsequent election, Bush then held the position of senator. John Carrey, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” broadcasting A skit about the map of the Electoral College. (“Saturday Night Live” and NBC News are both owned by NBCUniversal).
In subsequent elections, the maps remained part of the electoral humor.
Site in 2014 Funny or Die posted a bunch of stupid Electoral College maps.
In 2016, the political news website FiveThirtyEight published a map of the two Electoral Colleges, showing just what it would look like. men voted and if only women votedrespectively. According to Know Your Meme, this prompted people on social media to memorize the maps.
With each election, the maps become more prominent fodder and more irreverent, so they’re hard to miss when looking at X in 2024.
A flurry of fake maps emerged on social media Thursday, with speculation that the DNC would have a special guest who could be a prominent pop star, the night Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.
While the unplanned surprise guests didn’t appear on stage, the rumors inspired jokes about the map.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the DNC, please welcome your surprise guest, Katy Perry!” an X user wroteDNC organizers joked that the majority of the country would vote Republican if they had a pop artist as their guest.
“electoral map if beyonce comes out thursday for full choir singing american requiem,” another X user wrotewith a completely blue map image.
“Electoral map if Taylor Swift announces rap tv at DNC” A user on X jokedwith a blue map.